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00:00It's a pretty brash skyline. All those towers trying to outdo one another. Sydney's CBD of
00:13course is a super competitive built environment. You might think getting a glass and steel building
00:19up there would be an architect's toughest and most rewarding gig. Well, maybe. Unless your
00:26next assignment is transforming your childhood home into a futuristic steel and glass forever
00:32house. And your mum's watching.
00:56So that boat over there, the hood on it, is about the size of boat that we used to have.
01:10Ed Lipman is Sydney, through and through. He's going in gale winds and thrash it, absolutely
01:17thrash it. Everyone loves this great city. It is beautiful by world standards and there's
01:23an energy in Sydney which is unique to Sydney. And I think that energy is a gregariousness.
01:31Ed is one of Australia's most acclaimed and accomplished architects. And his home city
01:37is his major canvas. I've designed and built a range of buildings. Eight
01:44Shifley Square, which is a premium grade commercial high rise tower. The Andrew Boyd Charlton pool.
01:52King George V Recreation Centre in the Rocks. Residential buildings like the Butterfly House.
01:58Butterfly House is a jaw dropping masterwork high on an eastern suburbs hill with dramatic
02:05views of the harbour and headquarters.
02:07The Butterfly House was a unique project. I didn't think it was real. The client's requirement
02:13was for a house with no straight lines. It kind of evolved from this Feng Shui requirement
02:20of no trapped energy, no Qi. So very soon after the first sketch was done, he said, OK, let's
02:28start this. How much is it going to cost? I had no idea. But it just, it became a building.
02:34And, you know, I put a lot of time and effort into it. I'm proud of it. But it's an unusual
02:39building for sure.
02:40With its unconventional lines and look at me location, Butterfly House caused a stir.
02:47Was it too gregarious for its genteel surrounds? Now, 20 years on, it looks at ease in what's
02:54become a trophy home neighbourhood. Ed's childhood domain, Dover Heights.
03:00In the early 60s, it wasn't as dense as it is now. The guys, the guy next door had a goat.
03:06And there was another resident who had a pet kangaroo in the front garden. So it wasn't
03:11like it is now. Wall to wall buildings and apartment blocks. Have a look at this.
03:17Ed's Spanish-born wife, Sonia, is also an accomplished architect. And that's your pretty mum. She
03:34looks fantastic in these photos. We are a blended family. This is the second marriage for us and we
03:40have five children together. Not together. Ed has three, Ryu, Eve and Mitch. And I have my twin
03:46daughters, Anuk and Miley. Which brings us to Ed's most personal and arguably his most challenging
03:53project to date, given the history preceding it and high emotion surrounding it. He's creating a new
04:00home on hallowed ground. The scene of his own childhood. An unmistakable Lipman work rising from
04:07foundational elements of the house his immigrant parents bought and renovated more than 60 years ago.
04:14The original building was in the 20s. My parents transformed it in the 1960s. And we're transforming
04:20it again in the 21st century. Transforming's a bit of an understatement. Demolition and preparatory
04:26work is already underway, where the relatively humble family home held its grandstand location.
04:33With Sonia at his side, Ed's planning a soulful structure in signature steel and glass.
04:39Let's build what we need. Let's build what is sustainable. Let's build what is friendly with
04:44the environment, with the context, with the culture. And that has a meaning for us.
04:49The pressure is, how good will it be as a piece of architecture? It would be highly embarrassing for me
04:57and for Sonia. If we can't do this well, we don't have a client to blame. So, you know, if we can't do
05:05something outstanding. It's like a tailor wearing a bad outfit. We can do this. Ed is a good architect.
05:14But also, I think he's specialised in difficult things, problematic projects, and that's where he
05:21excels. And I'm an architect as well, and I'm quite a perfectionist. She's the perfectionist, not me.
05:26Truth is, they're both perfectionists, so the road ahead is going to be tricky, maybe even testy.
05:34A little like the trail to the site itself. It's a landlocked block, midway up the Dover Heights
05:40foothills, with dozens and dozens of steps all the way to the front gate. Getting here's a hike,
05:45getting steel and glass building components here, is surely going to be an ordeal.
05:50This has got to be in. There they are. Hello. Bienvenido.
05:58Oh, thank you very much. Nice to see you.
06:00Lovely to see you too. Hi Ed. That's Spanish for welcome.
06:02I feel very welcomed. And wow, this has got to be one of the best views in Sydney. You've got the
06:07skyline, the bridge, the harbour's twinkling away over there, the ferries. The ferry, we can see the
06:13ferry's coming in to Rose Bay. Oh, what a canvas. You know, this is such a pleasure to be building
06:17in a place like this. It is. But you are completely bounded here. You don't have a carport, a driveway.
06:24You've got a public right-of-way access down here. Just getting materials in here is going to be its own
06:30sort of superhuman feat. This early demolition stage is being done manually because it's cheaper.
06:37There's a lot of surgery. We're keeping bits of it, but we're adding the next layer. Okay.
06:43It's really very much about sustainability. So what we can keep, we keep. Yeah.
06:49Most of the house will be built in a workshop and lifted into place by crane. But we're not landing,
06:56you know, a UFO on a flat land. Yeah.
06:59It is. We are adapting to a very quirky landscape. That clean, glassy architecture needs to down,
07:07come down to earth and adapt to reality. The original bungalow built about 100 years ago
07:15made little of its position. But the makeover by Ed's mum and dad in the 1960s gave it a practical
07:21layout of four bedrooms and two bathrooms and opened the outlook westward onto that harbour view.
07:27Ed and Sonia aim to make that panorama the out and out big screen superstar.
07:34Some rudimentary structural elements of the original home will stay and provide a kind of
07:39DNA connection to what was. Roots for the new home? A composition of hundreds of hefty steel beams and
07:46struts and dozens of panels of made to measure glass. Living areas will revel in the outlook. An open plan
07:53kitchen, dining room and lounge room under a vaulted ceiling behind a towering west-facing window wall.
08:02There'll be a study come dressing room space in the master bedroom and just two other bedrooms,
08:07along with two bathrooms in this single level layout. A gregarious developer might have built an
08:14impersonal multi-storey palace. Ed and Sonia's home will be entirely personal. Relatively modest in scale,
08:22environmentally conscious in nature, but nevertheless striking to look at and stunning to look from.
08:29There's a level of humanity to all this. It's not a building that is going to be perfect and, you know,
08:37creating this object. The people who live in it need to feel comfortable. They're the priority.
08:42What we need is a house for us to live in and we're doing what I hope will be a beautiful,
08:49modest house surrounded by a wonderful landscape. Fantastic. So this is 40 years of your practice and
08:55experience distilled into a small single-storey home that actually was your family's anyway. And
09:01the main value for us is that we like it, we're comfortable and it's not a burden to manage or
09:06to clean or to maintain. Yeah. It feels like we are growing a shell together. Okay. We're doing it
09:12organically. I don't know how to best describe it. It's just like it's growing around us. Yeah. How long
09:18are we going to be building this for? About eight months. Eight months? Yeah. It shouldn't take...
09:23And normally at this point I'd go, what? But you know what you're talking about. So I'm going to
09:28say, oh, eight months? All right. Well, that's very ambitious though. It's ambitious. Yeah.
09:32But because we're building the bones in a factory, we're not delayed by wet weather. Sure.
09:37It's just a question of sequencing things. Yeah. How much money is this going to cost you?
09:44About one and a half million dollars. Okay. Okay. Even with all the lifting and the logistics and all
09:50that. Yeah. Great. I think what you've outlined here is an amazing project with a great story.
09:56Actually, everything that you've spoken about is not an architectural project, which is a hero. It's a
10:00sentimental next step in your lives. It's linking to your family. It's your new family and your future
10:06together. It's a beautiful picture. I can't wait to see where this kind of goes. We're looking forward
10:10to start our lives. Yeah. Yes. This seems like it's going to turn the volume up to 11 on challenges
10:16from my point of view. So I'm looking forward to seeing your solutions to those problems.
10:21We'll see. Yeah.
10:25It might've been simpler, far more lucrative, to build a snazzy palace in this amazing location.
10:31But I love the fact that Ed and Sonia have chosen the tougher, more challenging route,
10:35a bit like the trail up to the site itself. But it's Ed Lipman. So you'd expect him to be pushing the
10:41envelope of steel and glass and unorthodox methods of building. It's what's made him
10:46such a distinctive figure in Australian architecture. But has he made it a mission impossible?
10:52He wants to honour the family legacy, please himself, please Sonia, please the kids,
10:57and create a piece of art, really, up here on this vaulted stage for everyone to see.
11:04Ed's long been a champion of prefabrication as a practical, sensible, time- and labour-saving
11:26building technique.
11:26Here's your structure, 873 pieces of steel, creating 62 assembled elements that we need
11:34to install up on that higher level.
11:37And with specialist steel fabricator Mark, he's been busily configuring each and every
11:43piece of the steel skeleton set for the Dover Heights area.
11:46There's a lot that can go wrong. We've spent a lot of time at the design stage,
11:52modelling the structure, the steel work, the detail, checking that the pieces fit. It's all
11:57going to go together. So we're talking millimetres. And I want to make sure that before it all comes
12:03to site, it's correct, the pieces fit together. The time spent now is crucial to making sure that
12:11we don't have problems on site.
12:13It's a lot more intense than your standard structural jobs. Ed's project is comprised of
12:2010,136 kilos of steel. The heaviest piece has been a 600 kilo architectural platework awning.
12:29In real life, this 600 kilos is going to be required to be put at a six degree tilt.
12:35Okay, that's a picture of your roof. This needs to be done on the ground with the crane. Can't be done
12:40in the air. So we're going to have to pitch it at six degrees, make sure it's rotated right. When
12:44she flies in and lands, it has to find all the points of contact at once. It's got to find them
12:49all at exactly the same time when the crane's lowered. That's going to be a tricky one to get
12:54up there. But you know, 600 kilos, it's not too bad. You get a 90 ton crane and it lifts it.
13:00Within this super sized Meccano set are 14 metre steel beams, too long for practical transportation.
13:11So they've been halved for the truck and crane and they'll be reconstructed on site. But even when the
13:17fabrication process is micro precise, there are distortions that can still occur.
13:22It goes from here to a galvaniser somewhere else and it gets dropped into a very hot bath of zinc.
13:30That can distort the steel, it can twist the steel, can be damaged in transport. So until it's actually
13:36in position, we can't know for sure that it's going to turn out a perfect job.
13:44Getting the hefty assortment of steel, 10 tonnes of it up and over power lines and neighbours' roofs,
13:55and into place, will be a delicate perilous dance of trucks and cranes and wires and personnel.
14:02Steel Foreman Mick will choreograph the show. A very unusual sight. I thought I actually had the
14:09wrong address because when I pulled up, there was no front gate, no garage, no car access. Like,
14:14where do these people get into their home? But it was actually up, I think I counted 58 stairs
14:19the day I was here, carrying bits and pieces up here. So it's a very tricky one. Very tricky. Need
14:24to be fit. Need to be fit for this mountain goat material. Fixing everything neatly and snugly into place
14:32is another dance altogether. The prefabricated steel will need to fit precisely into preordained
14:38anchor points here. Builder Sam knows accuracy is vital. If one of the components is wrong or is
14:47not fitting, that's going to be a worry. But look, concerns and challenges and risks always there,
14:52no matter what, that's always the case. You know, nothing goes smoothly, nothing goes easily. But look,
14:59if there is a will, there is a way. It has to happen.
15:02The epic framework for the new house is just days away. So there's a flurry of checking and double
15:13checking. But this project isn't just about steel bones. It's also about heart and soul. And today,
15:21Ed and Sonia welcome a special guest with a special assignment.
15:25Ed and Sonia have asked this renowned designer and artist to create a signature piece for their home.
15:54Ed and Sonia with the lacquer. I would paint it a few times. I like it to be very graphic,
16:01very flat, colour nose and a brushstroke. And I'd paint it a couple of times.
16:12And how high will this, will it go all the way up?
16:15Only to there.
16:17Lynn's a great artist. Most people know about her father, Jorn Utzen, who designed the Sydney Opera House.
16:22She is an artist in her own right. But the important thing about her coming here is that
16:28she needed to understand the context of the artwork. And I love that height of the, of the room.
16:35I think that's, I love high ceiling. She does sculptural things. She does murals and ceramic. She does
16:41tapestries. So we didn't know exactly what we were commissioning.
16:46She's cut with the idea of a painted lacquered panel.
16:51She talked about woods and she mentioned lacquer. It sounds fantastic already.
16:56And it will have the beautiful light coming in on it. And you would be welcomed by it when you enter.
17:04Sydney breaks overcast for the first big day of heavy metal action. A steely grey backdrop for the
17:23tons of components about to take flight. Today is a cool day. No rain. We don't want any rain. A lot of this
17:30steel is within metres of live power. We're going over tiger tail power lines. We've got a lot of
17:36neighbours, walkways, pedestrians, moving parts, cars and all that around us. So we need to be
17:41vigilant and safe with that. It's all crane work, but it's very dangerous work.
17:47Dangerous work makes for a thrilling show with a very invested audience.
17:52I'm Tony and my wife and I live next door to Ed. And we're a little bit, how shall I say, a little
17:57bit concerned about the lift going on today. We can see the crane, we can see the amount of steel that's
18:02going to be lifted over our house. It's a high stakes drama with a huge cast of extras and a core of
18:10central players. There's crane driver Graham. Ready for it. The crew's done a great job this morning
18:17though, definitely setting up already. So fingers crossed, everything goes to plan and we get into it.
18:24Well, the columns have come in there. They should miss, hopefully miss it when come in underneath there.
18:28It's the power lines that present the biggest risk and that means a tense day for spotter Georgia
18:48in charge of electrical awareness. There is a lot of danger involved. If one of the
18:53steels or the crane or the boom gets in contact with the power lines, electrical damage can happen,
19:01shock can happen. It can shut down power throughout the whole entire street. It can shut down the job,
19:06everything. Dogman Aidan is Graham's eyes and ears on the ground. Easing up your sleuth somewhere there,
19:27mate, jibbing and hooking only. We've got trees on the perimeter of the job where we need to land
19:35steel and we've also got trees out the front where we're landing still just to unload. We don't have
19:39much room out there. It's causing a bit of havoc. Just pull out there, bro. We're just in the tree a
19:47little bit. Keep coming. Look. Ed's watched his commissioned buildings rise to great heights and
19:54great acclaim. But when it's your own home, your own money and your own long-standing neighbourhood,
20:00the pressure's a little more intense. There are plenty of challenges here. The steel work has been
20:06fabricated to high degree tolerances. We're talking one or two millimetres. I've done my meditation
20:12practice this morning, so I'm nice and calm. We've made arrangements with the local council to close
20:17the street for three days. We've got the crane for three days if we need it. My main issue is to get it
20:27your eyes. Look at that. T-t-t-t-t-t-t. Coming down. Pull it in, pull it in. Yeah, all right. Looking out again.
20:44A little bit.
20:45First steel column in, bolted down. Fantastic. But that's one of 873 pieces in the set.
21:04There's plenty of work to do.
21:05The crane's a monster and it needs to be. Here comes that 600 kilo tapered awning that demanded its
21:19own choreography plan back at the fabricators. It floats down and thankfully slots in.
21:29Can you push that that way?
21:30It's a big moment and Mick's relieved when it's locked in place.
21:35Mick's going great. I love this stuff. Every day mate, every day. Keeps me young, keeps me fit.
21:42The $5,000 a day steel show rolls on through a second day, then a third and hopefully final day.
21:52But conditions have changed dramatically.
21:55We've been trying to work around the wind for the morning. Just there, everything a lot slower,
22:01a lot slower of pace, a bit more careful. And obviously we've got a bit more implications with
22:07being not able to work if it gets too windy. So around the 10, 11 metres a second mark,
22:12we've actually got to stop working.
22:15But the weather's not the only thing casting a pall over the Dover Heights site.
22:20It's becoming physical, it's becoming real. As the scale and shape of his creation is becoming more
22:27distinct and well past the point of no return, incredibly, Ed's having second thoughts.
22:33I do have doubts. I mean, I think it's only normal, it's natural, human to have those doubts.
22:42Have we given it enough thought? Have we given it enough time? Are we rushing it?
22:47Ed? This whole exercise was not worth doing unless it's going to be better than what it's replacing.
22:55Would my father, who's no longer with us, be happy with what's being done
23:03to the house that he bought many years ago?
23:07Ed? I'm not surprised Ed is questioning himself at all. Ed is a perfectionist and he's obsessed with
23:15the tiniest detail. I think he's a warrior in his soul, but if he can't fight the elements,
23:22he fights himself. He challenges all his decisions. He wants to make things perfect. He comes tonight and
23:29he doubts. He has true nightmares about, oh my God, is this good enough? Did I resolve it well? Is there a better solution?
23:37And the good thing about him is that he keeps going. He doesn't stop. So, um, those self-doubt moments
23:48dissolve and in the end, the process accrues one layer after another layer and it becomes a great piece of work.
23:57It's been seat of the pants stuff, but thankfully no power lines down, no neighbouring roofs crushed,
24:05everyone's safe and the steel is in. It's been a great rehearsal for the real nail-biter ahead.
24:12The arrival, uplift and fitting of tons of super expensive, millimetre perfect, precision-made panels
24:19of super fragile glass. Ed's late dad Henry and mum Julie loom large over all he's trying to achieve
24:36at Dover Heights. They worked hard to buy the original house. And then in here there'll be plants
24:43and that's the little garden for the bedroom. And then Julie, now 100 years old, oversaw the 60s
24:51renovation. Do you think I'm crazy? No, no, you're not crazy, but... Ed's keeping Julie up to date with
24:58developments. He's keen for input and why wouldn't he be? There's so much of their life together in this
25:05little patch of Sydney. He's changing a lot of things. Everything is, it will look differently.
25:13He thinks it's going to be looking like the opera house.
25:18I wish. Yeah. Her biggest concern with the house is it doesn't go over budget. If it's a great piece
25:27of architecture or not, that's secondary for her. Do you think you'll like it? Yeah, why not? Good.
25:36When Ed worries if the new house is going to be good enough, it's as much about honouring his heritage
25:42as it is about forging a future. I hope Mum's going to like it. I think she'll be proud of her little boy.
25:56Back on site, they're adding a few more degrees of difficulty to the access equation. The lower roofs
26:03going on. I reckon threading dozens of panes of glass through the new steel superstructure would
26:11have been hard enough, but this is going to shut down a whole bunch of access points and the glass
26:17team's really going to have to thread the needle when those expensive panes get here.
26:28Far away from the clank and clamour of the Dover Heights site, in a rural pocket of Mallorca, Spain,
26:34Lynn Utzon is working in her whisper quiet studio.
26:37I start with a sketch and then work until that's relatively perfect and the client approves and then
26:48I choose the materials and start working in the real scale. The brief was that there wasn't really a brief.
26:59Ed and Sonia wanted me to do something and left me a free hand.
27:04And we went through different solutions and they, we sort of collaborated about what it should be.
27:12Lynn works with all sorts of media, paint, timber, textiles, even ceramics, often big and bold pieces.
27:21Though not quite to the scale of her dad's major work, more than a million tiles clad the Sydney Opera House.
27:27Lynn's pieces are keenly sought for public and private collections.
27:33In this case, it's marine plywood and then I used a water-based lacquer.
27:40For Ed and Sonia's commission, she's chosen a layered lacquering technique to create a gleaming triptych.
27:46I painted the surface six times so that it's absolutely perfectly smooth lacquer.
27:57It becomes very physical.
27:59It's an organic abstract collage of a feeling of exuberance.
28:08It doesn't really have anything recognisable in terms of nature or topic.
28:16It's just a feeling of joy.
28:20Sonia is Spanish.
28:21So we ended up choosing together these colours, which are exuberant and very Spanish.
28:29And it was a sort of beautiful reflection of her Spanish soul.
28:38Lynn's three piece work will span to nine square metres.
28:42It's going to be a striking centrepiece, basking in the abundant natural light of its glass and steel home,
28:48taking shape on the other side of the world.
28:52It's always, for me anyway, a blessing to be asked to do a work.
28:59And his house is very interesting.
29:01It'll be beautiful and, you know, artists like me, we always work alone.
29:08And so when somebody comes along and says,
29:11we love what you do, will you do something for us?
29:14It's a blessing.
29:18Whether it's a blockbuster movie, a hit record, or a Dover Heights crane assignment,
29:30the sequel can be much more difficult than the original.
29:40Ed and the team have waited four months for this fragile consignment.
29:44Some smaller panes have broken in transit.
29:47So boys, we're going to come through from that point to this point.
29:51But the challenge now is to get all this expensive precision glass up and in,
29:57without losing any more pieces or any more time in the process.
30:01Ed's facing another long round of looking up and worrying.
30:05Hope he's factored physio into the budget.
30:08That neck is going to be sore.
30:11It's very exciting.
30:12This is architecture. It's a performing art.
30:16What?
30:17And this is where we see it at its best.
30:20It doesn't get much better than this.
30:24There are six huge panes, each weighing half a tonne, $12,000 a pop.
30:30Four of these giants will make up the sprawling western window wall.
30:35You're pretty much lifting a gigantic sail that catches the wind.
30:38If it takes off, you're not getting it back.
30:40You've pretty much got a gigantic missile in the air that you need to try and
30:43regain control of.
30:44And especially with the size of these panels,
30:46we don't really want that happening because they're very heavy.
30:49This is like the Wheel of Fortune, isn't it?
30:50It's pretty bad when it starts going.
30:56Just once that starts beating, it's quite bad at the time.
30:59Nearly there, mate. Give me another half of your leg.
31:03We need to get those wrapped away from the free day.
31:05Sonia's brought her positive energy to the big day.
31:18Oh, it's amazing to see progress.
31:21It's been very slow for a few weeks.
31:23These things happen on site sometimes, but today it's like we're moving up a notch.
31:29It's very good.
31:30It does mean a lot.
31:32Getting the glass in is the glass is a very important part of the project.
31:36And when this is over, then we can breathe a sigh of relief.
31:48Yep, good to go.
31:49All right, release, sucker.
31:53All right, on three.
31:54We're just going to try and do short drags.
31:56Don't try and do anything monstrous.
31:58Just short drags.
31:59See how we go.
32:00One, two, three.
32:05Okay, hold there.
32:08One, two, three.
32:11Okay, ready?
32:12Just drag across.
32:14That's your turn.
32:16Lean the top in to see how it sits.
32:19Okay, we're in pocket.
32:20All right.
32:20We've got three mil packers.
32:22Can we get some packers underneath the glass out here, please?
32:24Nice.
32:25But even with all the care in the world, kid gloves and millimetre moves, it's not enough.
32:31A crack has appeared.
32:34And as small as it looks, it's ruined the pain.
32:39That's a bit of a bummer.
32:43After all that, getting it in, nine guys, tiny crack.
32:47So it'll stay in for now, keep the place waterproof, but it'll have to be replaced,
32:52so it'll come back and replace it.
32:56If Ed's annoyed, he's not showing it.
32:58He's determined to stay cool and focused as the rest of the big pains go in.
33:03One, two, three.
33:15Yeah, we're bang on.
33:18Bang on?
33:18Bang on.
33:19Bang on.
33:20Another giant arrives, but it's chipped on an edge in the process.
33:27So it's re-lifted, flipped and re-installed.
33:30The blemish is at the bottom and will be hidden behind joinery.
33:36Good job, boys. Good job.
33:37And then, finally, the last piece in the giant puzzle.
33:42It's an epic moment.
33:44This is the fourth panel that's got in today.
33:47And it hasn't been easy.
33:48It's been a big challenge, actually, with a lot of things, a lot of factors.
33:52But this is the last piece to go in.
33:54You're only about 15 off the head.
33:58Ed has been suffering a bit through the process.
34:03There's been a few sleepless nights, yes, for both of us.
34:08But today does make a difference.
34:12You know, we're enclosing the building and it's a big step forward.
34:16It's been, well, I don't know if agonising is the right word, but, yeah, it's been a bit all
34:36difficult, challenging, agonising, maybe, but certainly difficult.
34:45A big, big challenge.
34:46This is no ordinary here.
34:48You know, this is something pushing the boundaries, for sure.
34:53The glasswork in the Dover Heights house feels as highly calibrated as a space telescope.
35:01But when this is your outlook, you want to gather in every glittering speck of it.
35:06And I don't think there are too many better ways of capturing it than with Ed's favourite materials.
35:12The glass and steel that's become emblematic of Lippmann designs
35:16and vaulted him into the pantheon of Australian architecture.
35:19Some of those architectural luminaries, including trailblazers in domestic steel and glass,
35:26have a remarkable collective showcase across the harbour in a leafy suburb called Castle Crag,
35:33the co-creation of two visionaries best known for dreaming up our national capital.
35:39Castle Crag was the experiment and the promise of Walter Burley Griffin in 1919,
35:45who, with his wife and partner Marion Marnie Griffin, set out to reimagine the possibilities of living
35:52in the Australian landscape.
35:54Here, in this beautiful bushland setting overlooking Sydney Harbour.
35:57Other big names joined in over time.
36:00Harry Seidler, Peter Muller and Neville Grusman.
36:04Even Peter Hall, who finished the Opera House after Jorn Woodson left.
36:08They all added to the Griffin's vision.
36:13But we're here for this relatively modest but inspirational gem
36:18by another crack husband and wife team.
36:24This is the Bill and Ruth Lucas glass house, built for their family in 1957,
36:30just after the two young adventurous architects were married.
36:33And nearly 70 years later, it's just had an award-winning restoration
36:38by Sydney-based practice Cracknell Lonergan, and it is just sparkling.
36:46Look at this, it's just, it's weightless.
36:48And the landscape just seems to flow right through.
36:51Bill and Ruth's shelter-in-nature approach aimed to leave the site as untouched as possible,
37:01maintain in the building the character of the bush,
37:04and to provide maximum accommodation with minimum frills or finery.
37:10The whole house is actually really simple.
37:12It's designed on a three-by-four grid,
37:15which means you can kind of plug and play all these different modules.
37:19So it's a very open-plan kind of idea.
37:21There's a lot of looseness and adaptability built into the plan.
37:25Actually, once you've done that, then you can actually remove from in here
37:29the rooms to create a courtyard in the middle, which I'm standing in.
37:32Of course, once I'm here, I can see the beautiful sights sloping away underneath me.
37:36The house doesn't even touch it. It floats over everything.
37:40The other thing that's so nice about all this is you get this cross-ventilation
37:43coming through the house very easily, very gently.
37:46And I suppose the idea of circulation is just this little doughnut of a corridor
37:50that sort of circles the interior light well.
37:53Even nature seems to love this idea, so it's working out really well.
37:56But the secret source to all of this is the steel columns under here,
38:00and there are only four tiny little columns that just touch the ground
38:05and elevate this entire platform.
38:07Then you get all this bracing here to make it all stiff
38:09so it doesn't wobble around too much in the wind.
38:11Once you've got that strength and structure in here, then the rest is just infill,
38:16and that's where all the glass comes from.
38:18And it is looking just brilliant.
38:21The possibilities of steel and glass have continued to evolve and inspire.
38:27Ed's long been a champion of it, and now, with Sonia, he's continuing that storied history
38:32of husband and wife partnerships in cutting-edge architecture.
38:36But it's Ed that's putting all the pressure on the project,
38:40second-guessing and challenging decisions,
38:42because he's such a prominent exponent of this form.
38:46It might be a lightweight structure,
38:47but I can totally understand why he might be feeling the weight of history
38:51looking over his shoulder.
39:02The white-knuckle, acrobatic phases of Ed and Sonia's house are well and truly over,
39:08but the headaches remain.
39:10The bill is running behind.
39:12The prediction was eight months.
39:13It's now closing in on 12.
39:15At least the structure is enclosed and weatherproof,
39:20and the focus and effort now is fixed directly on the interior.
39:24The important thing here is it would be nice if that was flush.
39:29The spacers are taking shape and decisions are flipping on the fly.
39:33A plasterboard ceiling has been ditched for a timber ceiling,
39:37and that means Chippy Andy has to install reinforcing to hold the extra weight.
39:41It is a crack in the whip a little bit,
39:45We're right here in Ed's living room.
39:48It's two storeys up.
39:49And to be able to put in the support for the spotted gum,
39:54we've had to build this platform.
39:56It's not the most comfortable platform.
39:59I feel like I'm going to be a hunchback by the end of this job.
40:03It's a bit of a challenge.
40:07The reality is that we're into now the final stages of the job,
40:11and the details are very important.
40:12So I don't want to rush this last stage,
40:16because I'll be looking at this for the rest of my life.
40:19So I'm probably giving the builders and the subcontractors a lot of grief,
40:24because I'm particular.
40:26Even if you want to leave a little gap where the angle is,
40:29so there's a couple of mil, even three mil,
40:32we've got space here.
40:33That's going to be a board missing there.
40:35It's just a sense of getting it right,
40:37doing it properly, and focusing on the job.
40:41And it'll be finished when it's finished.
40:42I think eight weeks should be fine.
40:45If it's eight and a half, that's okay.
40:47It might be less, but we'll be here for many, many years to come.
40:51So, and I say the same thing to clients, don't rush the end of the job.
40:56Get it right and make sure you're happy with everything.
41:03That's probably a bit radical.
41:05It looks very stained, but I don't know.
41:09If there is a lot of them, it will look good.
41:12If there's just that one...
41:13Sonia has been a constant counsel in the process,
41:16and she has plenty of influence.
41:18At the very beginning, she convinced Ed to abandon his plans
41:21for a big, showy home and go with a smaller scale build.
41:25She argued that less is more.
41:29Beautiful.
41:30He wanted to build a two-storey house.
41:32And I said, look, we don't really need a two-storey house.
41:36We need a house for us.
41:38We don't need five bedrooms and four bathrooms.
41:42It's just the two of us.
41:44We'll be empty nesters in no time.
41:46So let's reduce, have one single storey.
41:49And it costed him months to agree with that idea.
41:55This is Ed's baby.
41:57He's the architect, but I'm an architect myself.
42:00So, of course, I've had a lot of input and a lot to say on every step of the way.
42:04Probably very annoying for him.
42:06But as a result of that, this is, you know, a product that we've created together.
42:11So we're going to paint the pellet black so it sort of disappears.
42:14Yeah.
42:15Yeah.
42:15Sonia's now front and centre in the effort to soften the steel and glass structure with warm,
42:21natural finishes as the project drives to the finish line.
42:24It's a very emotional moment for us to see this house come together.
42:30And the truth is, until now, this point in the construction, it hasn't really looked like a house.
42:39So now we really feel we're building our home.
42:42And it's a very special moment.
42:45We're building on top of what was here before.
42:48And there's a lot of memories from Ed's family in here.
42:53And I think it's important.
42:55It infuses the building with some soul.
42:59And we can feel that.
43:00I think we're going to be happy here.
43:03As a child, I grew up here and there were a lot of good memories.
43:07Some not so good memories as well.
43:10Some tough times.
43:12But, you know, it's part of my DNA.
43:16So Sonia and I are definitely creating a new future.
43:21And there's a sense that this is a new chapter in our lives.
43:25And the house will be definitely a very important part of that.
43:41So it looks like life might have returned to a semblance of normality in this little Dover
43:51Heights cul-de-sac.
43:52The building crews have left.
43:54The cranes are gone.
43:56The neighbours can finally relax.
43:59And hopefully Ed and Sonia can too.
44:01The work is done.
44:03Time to scale the rambling steps and take a look at the results of this epic production.
44:08I can't wait.
44:11Ed, Sonia, you made it.
44:20Welcome.
44:20This is just beautiful.
44:23You must be feeling like so good right now.
44:26We're relieved.
44:27Is it relief?
44:27It's an absolute relief.
44:29I know it's been a real journey for you.
44:31It is a physical effort and an emotional strain too all the way through.
44:37There's a lot of happiness, but there's a lot of, yeah.
44:41All bundled up into one.
44:42Yes, absolutely.
44:44Two architects, one project.
44:45Are we both speaking to each other still?
44:48We started talking again.
44:50That's nice to hear.
44:52Now you're enjoying the home.
44:53You're actually talking again.
44:54And I mean, I'm going to ask you very directly.
44:55Do you love it?
44:57Well, of course we love it.
44:59I want to hear the love.
45:00We love it.
45:01We love it.
45:02It's a fantastic spot to be.
45:05We have the delivery people, when they come here bringing a pizza, they stop here, drop
45:09the pizza and take pictures of the view.
45:13Yes, we love it.
45:13It's a fantastic, magical spot.
45:15Well, how could you not love it?
45:20And from every angle out here, particularly as this deceptively understated, deliberately
45:25unassuming creation gradually reveals itself to the lucky visitor.
45:30We actually laboured over that.
45:31What's the entry sequence?
45:33That arrival with the view and then the house, there's a promenade, there's a sequence.
45:39Yes, that choreography is beautiful.
45:41It's very theatrical, but it's also just very subtle.
45:44Some of the best holidays we've had are those where we trek through nature.
45:50So I think we've recreated this a little bit.
45:52You've got your little trek through the reserve, your little trek through the garden,
45:57and then you're at home, which feels very quiet, but in the middle of nature.
46:01It really feels like it's just in the canopy of the trees.
46:05It's not a look at me building.
46:06That's what's really nice about it.
46:08It's unpretentious and the connection to nature.
46:12Yeah.
46:12So it's come together and it belongs.
46:15Yeah.
46:15Well, look, I can see the timber kind of calling me from inside there.
46:18Come inside.
46:19Yeah, I want to have a look.
46:21Lead on.
46:28This is it.
46:29This is it.
46:30Look at this.
46:31This is exceptional.
46:33After all that work, you've brought it all together into this amazing room.
46:37This room that we're in right now is really the public space of the house.
46:42There are lots of little rooms around the edges, bedrooms and bathrooms,
46:45but this is the communal piazza, if you like, of the house.
46:50What an exceptional room this is.
46:52I mean, bang, Lynn's work, Lynn Woodson's work, is what a wonderful welcome to bring
46:58us into the home, draw us from the front door through here with all that beautiful colour.
47:02To see that when you walk in the door is amazing.
47:05The size of it, the colour of it, the relationship between the artwork and the view outside in the room.
47:11Yeah.
47:12But it really feels like it belongs here.
47:15Yeah.
47:18This is a feast for the senses.
47:20Lynn Woodson's dazzling collage.
47:23The redolent aroma of spotted gum, top to bottom, evoking the Australian bush.
47:28And that panorama of glass and steel drawing in the very bingeable highlights of a great Australian city.
47:36I can see the precision of the steel that's in here now.
47:40Even the fact that it's painted Harbour Bridge grey.
47:43It's a nod to our wonderful Sydney Harbour Bridge.
47:47Right over there, like peeking over the hill in the distance.
47:49It's very beautiful.
47:51But what I'm really enjoying from being inside here now is seeing the way that the house sort of
47:57reframes the view. It's gone from just being the thing out there. I'm seeing the long line of the
48:02timber here, the line of the steel beams and the kind of the horizon lines over there. So it's kind of
48:07giving us the layers of the view. The house is helping us to see it.
48:12There are so many deft moves here. A transparent fireplace softly articulates the zones
48:18within Ed and Sonia's public square. But in reality, the forum unfolds seamlessly
48:24into the neighbouring public spaces. The kitchen is stunning, but it's all about simplicity,
48:31function and necessity over showy trappings.
48:35Where's all the rest of the kitchen palaver? Where's the butler's pantry? The second dishwasher?
48:40Where is all that stuff? We do everything, so it's modest.
48:45Doing more with less. No butler's pantry, no family room, none of these extravagances.
48:51Yeah. But it feels good. It feels so much better for that.
48:55Better. Yeah. And over the way, softly underscoring the majestic window wall,
49:00that gorgeous credenza. A silent, singular hovercraft floating above the floor, unifying the spaces.
49:08I love the way it brings your line of sight right from the front door almost. Snakes it right through
49:13here and links the two gardens on either side of the home. So visually it's the connector. It's like a
49:18beautiful bridge, a beautiful timber bridge. So the way you described it, it's very romantic and
49:24beautiful. But you know the real reason why we put this cabinetry here is so we didn't see the
49:31neighbour's house. So we figured out, we sat in different places in the room in different heights
49:37to figure out which was the exact size of the credenza to hide the neighbour's roof and allow the
49:44view. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. It's a very practical decision. Yeah. And then we... She's a very
49:49practical woman. Yes. And you can sweep underneath it. There's magical multi-function everywhere,
49:57some of it hidden, waiting to be summoned. What magic is this? This is a sliding door,
50:03it's a sliding wall actually. Yeah. That turns the room into a more intimate dining space. Look at that,
50:10you're right. They're walls. That's not a door. Sonia is the best room shrinker in the business.
50:17That is fantastic. And look at the... Look how beautiful the timber is.
50:20It's beautiful timber. It makes the room intimate and it extends that materiality.
50:27It's almost impossible to believe that this home sprung from key structural elements of Ed's
50:33childhood home. And this is our bedroom and study. The humble old bungalow his mum and dad bought in
50:43the 60s and renovated when they were able, living on here in walls and foundations and aspects of the old
50:50layout. I mean, how magnificent is it to wake up to that every morning? Wonderful. Inspiring. Oh,
50:57absolutely. I mean, I guess this is where we also get a bit of a sort of view of the old house. Yeah.
51:03Well, this is what is now a study used to be my parents' bedroom. Right. This was my bedroom when
51:09I was a boy and those bathrooms were bathrooms. So we haven't changed that. We've remodelled it,
51:15new micro cement floor and, you know, nice new linings. But these spaces were there. We've combined it into one.
51:22I mean, the thing too is, you know, we're in a very sort of fairly highly densely populated area here,
51:29yet it feels like we really are in a retreat. Yeah. Somehow you've managed to push the other
51:33houses away. You've made this little sanctuary. We've screened them. Ed knows this site very well.
51:38So every inch is carefully curated so we don't see the neighbours, although they are very, very close.
51:45Yeah. We don't feel them. We don't see them from here. Yeah. Planting helps. Although planting
51:51creates beautiful spaces inside the house, it also screens the neighbours. There's almost as much
51:57thought in the garden design as the house itself. But like the house, you don't see all the fretting
52:03and fussing and the work that went into it. The results look effortless. What a triumph.
52:11This is an incredible design. And I think, you know, if anything, the sign of a good home is
52:17how it makes you feel. And I'm feeling pretty comfortable sitting here right now. How are you
52:21feeling about all of this? Well, it makes us feel good. Good to have it finished because it's been
52:28hard. Yeah. But good because it has a very nice vibe and it feels very much like our space. The standard
52:37and the expectation is very high. So how do you achieve what you imagine? And it's probably impossible
52:43to fully achieve it. Yeah. I think we've done a good job. And I think it's never perfect,
52:47but we'll continue our evolution here. And no doubt there'll be some modifications over time.
52:56I don't know if there is such a thing as perfection. You do your best and it's for others to judge.
53:03Perfect enough. Perfect enough. Yeah. Let's talk about the time frame,
53:08because you initially said eight months going to be done. Yes. Yeah. That was wishful thinking.
53:14It was about double that, wasn't it? We've doubled that. It was about double that. Yeah. Why?
53:18Well, we had some problems. The cracked glass is one example. So that was a probably three month delay.
53:24You can't start B until you've completed A. So things got pushed back. At the same time,
53:30we didn't want to rush it. We wanted to get it right. Yeah. What about the budget?
53:36One and a half million dollars is what you told me when we first met. Yeah. How'd you go?
53:40It went a bit over that. It went up to about 1.8. Not wildly over that. It was experimentation and
53:48learning. We went with builders that learned with us. If we would have gone with a builder that has
53:55done it before, I can do this. It would have gone faster, I'm sure. Yeah. Not cheaper, but faster.
54:03Yeah. Still, 1.8. That's not a bad price for a beautiful home like this. What does your mum think?
54:08Oh, well, I was showing her some photos last night and she's a pretty harsh critic.
54:14And I was almost expecting her to say, what do you need this for? How much did it cost?
54:20But she looked at the photos and she was, she was impressed. I think she's, she's a proud mother. Yeah.
54:27So that was nice. I think she's happy that we're happy here and that we haven't overdone it.
54:36Well, I mean, it's an incredible achievement, I think, you know, and I think it's been a really
54:40beautiful thing to see inside your process as you've gone through this, you know, the sort of the
54:44perspective of two designers as they're working through a problem or a project like this. One that
54:49has all this emotional side to it, which has been the kind of the unquantifiable amongst all of this
54:55beautiful sort of high-tech quantifiable stuff. And the result is just magnificent. Thank you.
55:00Beautiful. Well done. Thank you.
55:02The climb to this sparkling, light-saturated Shangri-La is a little beyond Ed's 100-year-old mum,
55:18Julie, these days. But her impact and that of Ed's late father, Henry, their legacy,
55:24the family life here, is still very present. It's definitely better. But the dreaminess,
55:30like the essence of what was, that is still present.
55:37It's very much Ed and Sonia's home now. But really, it's a home that demands and deserves
55:43a much wider audience. Beyond a generational transformation, a home for the ages.
55:52In so many ways, this is Ed's magnum opus, his most intimate and daring endeavour yet.
55:59And the result is just magic. For two perfectionists, they've delivered nothing short of
56:05brilliance. Ed wove the dream, and Sonia breathed life into it. And the crowning glory,
56:11well, mum's given it the nod. And her approval is the gold standard after all.
56:16You can watch Grand Designs Australia on ABC iview now for free, or join the conversation on the
56:34Australian housing crisis. Listen to The Homefront with Anthony Burke on Radio National and the ABC
56:40Listen App now.
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